G'Day...

An avid fan of both Television and Cinema, this blog is desined to give Noble's personal predictions, and analysis of the Oscar and Emmy races each year, as well as providing a place for Noble's own annual awards for film and television to be archived. Feedback and Discussion is welcomed in the form of comments on the blog posts.

Tuesday, February 26, 2008

"No Country" Beats "Blood" in Western Showdown

Well after months of campaigning the Oscar seasons came down to 2 films for best picture: "No Country For Old Men" and "There Will Be Blood". At the end of the day although "Blood" picked up Lead Actor and best "Country" for Cinamatography it was "No Country" that nabbed Best Picture along with Director, Adapted Screenplay and Supporting Actor.

Here are my thoughts of the night:

GREAT

LEAD ACTOR: Daniel Day Lewis’ very deserving win for what is likely the best performance in film last year.

CINAMATOGRAPHY: Glad to see any love thrown Blood’s way

SUPPORTING ACTRESS: Great to not only see Michael Clayton honoured but also Swinton’s amazing performance in the film. The academy showed they are comfortable to go off the script to award the best.

ANIMATED FEATURE: Great to see the rat get an Oscar, although the film richly deserved to win more.

AVERAGE

DIRECTOR: The Coens would have been my 4th choice for the win (of the nominees) however I think the directing of this film was one of its strongest assets so am not too disappointed they won.

LEAD ACTRESS: I would have personally gone with Christie (or Linney who I haven’t seen), but Cotillard gave a good performance as well and I wasn’t too personally involved in this category. As long as Blanchett or Page didn’t win I was happy.

SUPPORTING ACTOR: I thought Wilkinson and Hoffman gave better performances and that Bardem should have been in lead. However a lot of people seem to think he’s supporting so I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and he gave a strong performance.

SONG: I’m glad those 2 won (how good were their speeches?) and everyone knows Menkin didn’t need another one. However I did think “That’s How You Know” was the slightly better song, so I cant put this win in my ‘great’ section.

EDITING/SOUND EDITING/SOUND MIXING: The Bourne mini-sweep came from left field and I wouldn’t have voted for it in any of the categories (although I haven’t seen it either) but it wasn’t disappointing in any way, just surprising.

COSTUME DESIGN/MAKEIP: No surprises here and both deserved, but I would have voted for Sweeney in costumes.

HOST: Jon Steart did a nice job and had me laughing throughout the night (his Vanity Fair joke was the highlight) however failed to give a memorable performance similar to the likes of Billy Crystal or Steve Martin.

TERRIBLE

PICTURE: Once again the academy have failed to recognise the (at least near) masterpiece in the midst of the best picture nominees, well I guess now the Citizen Kane references are more spot on for There Will Be Blood. However even worse they give it to a film that I feel is incredibly flawed and overrated.

SCREENPLAY: Ironically enough I think that the weakest element of both of the films that won screenplay was in fact the screenplay. I guess both seemed inevitable but I was hoping the academy would realise how poor these screenplays were and acknowledge the far superior ones in each category.

ART DIRECTION: Perhaps I’m being a little harsh as the Sweeney Todd art direction was good but nothing compared to the art direction of There Will Be Blood this year.SCORE: Overrated and poor score from Atonement beating the much better score from Ratatouille, heck I’d give it to Michael Clayton before Atonement.

VISUAL EFFECT: I haven’t seen any of these films but it seems like Transformers should have won this hands